you are not our enemy,” Netophah said. “You’re our ally now.”
But Ephan shook his head. “It has to be done.” He lifted the weeping girl and carried her to the arms of the Voca chief, who gently bore her away.
The girl stretched her hands toward her brothers. Her screams echoed through the empty desert. The Voca chief whispered in her ear but her words did not staunch the child’s tears.
“Who knows when we will meet each other again?” Tamira said, and entered her longhouse. Its doors closed behind her.
As the Voca Chief’s dwelling slowly dissolved, the Wheel Clan boys fell silent. Their silence lasted until they reached the place of scorched bones, where the skeletons of children sacrificed centuries before were like black dust on the red sand. There Netophah started laughing, clapping his hands.
“Certainly, we need our hearts lifted as well,” Lan said. “Not that anything you say is ever worth hearing.”
Netophah gasped in laughter, catching his breath. “First, Psal said…he said, it was an honor to be a studier. An honor. I almost laughed.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“Because Father has taught me not to show my heart easily, of course. I’m the prince of all the Wheel Clans, after all.”
Lan groaned. “And the second?”
“The Voca chief called Ephan ‘Little Favorite.’” Netophah’s face slyly hinted at adult secrets, leered. “I’ve heard our warriors call him that. But to think…even the Voca believe Ephan is Father’s lover.”
Lan pushed Netophah to the ground. “To think Nahas took away the Firstborn’s honor and gave it to an idiot like you!”
Netophah picked himself up and brushed sand from his tunic. “You asked me why I laughed. I told you. So, why hit me? And some of our warriors say Father treats Ephan with a special favor. Even for an adopted son.”
Once again, Lan pushed Netophah to the ground. “He is the king’s adopted son, Netophah. True, adopting foundlings and orphans are common in our clan, but the king’s heart seems as bound to Ephan as he is to you. Therefore, be silent, Birthright-stealer!”
Netophah clambered up and shoved Lan, his head buried in Lan’s chest, his arms flailing.
“Don’t push me!” he shouted. “I’m the future king of this clan.”
That declaration only succeeded in getting him knocked down again, this time with the additional ignominy of being pressed into the sand by Lan’s right boot. But Ephan lifted him to his feet.
“When I was a boy,” Ephan said, “I met the Voca Queen. I was very young, much younger than Tanti. It was some days before Psal and I were sent off to study with our Master. Nahas and his captains stood at my side, the queen opposite us. I remember she had the illness of our clan, my own illness, and had covered herself in a shawl to protect her skin from the sun. I don’t remember what they spoke of. I was a child and they spoke of adult matters, cryptically, as adults often do. But she looked kindly on me and I sensed she liked me. I sensed it then and I sense it now. Perhaps because I seemed so sickly and so like a little girl. Although I have not seen her since that day, whenever I chance to happen upon a Voca chief, they call me ‘Nahas’ Little Prince’ or ‘Nahas’ Favorite.’ As for being Nahas’ favorite, Nahas loves women…as far as I know. As far as we all know. Nor am I his lover. But ignorant fools are always presumptuous, and you—well-favored, blessed by nature birth-right stealer who thinks he’s the Creator’s gift to the world—why should someone as perfect as you not mock as you do?”
Tears welled in Netophah’s gray-green eyes; he was young then and he hadn’t the skill to argue with a studier, especially one he had angered. The rebuke silenced him for the remainder of the journey.
At the feast, Psal brought the foundling boys to Tsbosso, who received the children as a gift from his gods. But Tsbosso had something else in mind. “Lie with my daughter until the night comes.” He lifted a friendly warning finger to Psal. “Only, do not go too far. I know you understand what I mean.”
“But I don’t want—”
“My boy, a new love will push an old one away. When I told Moonlight she could have her sister’s former sweetheart, she was troubled. You can understand why. They’re sisters. But I told her it was all for the best.”
Psal shrugged, frowned, said nothing.
The white oval clay daubed on Moonlight’s face contrasted with her dark brown skin, glowing golden in the twilight. Her hemp skirt dyed in bloodroot swung at her waist like tall grasses. A jasper stone necklace hung between her bare breasts like the moon between twin towers.
She should not be called ‘Moonlight,’ She is the beauty of the sunset.
“I loved one who does not love me,” she said as they lay in the red desert sand. “He was a young chieftain from the Waymaker Clan. Today he told me he desires another. My heart is breaking under the hammer of this news. I fear I will remain unloved all my life.”
“It cannot be that you could be unloved!” Psal wiped her tears away. “All men in all the clans know of your beauty and your goodness.”
Her smile was so sad that Psal’s heart went out to her. So they played together, within Tsbosso’s prescribed bounds. He fondled her breasts and she caressed him, but his heart remained with his old sweetheart Cassia. All the while, the girl begged him to marry her, to leave his clan immediately and join hers. Such utter despair in her voice and eyes. If Psal had not feared to hurt Cassia, he would have taken her and married into Tsbosso’s clan.
As the third moon grew brighter, the feasting and dancing drew to its close. Psal rose from the ground, closed his trousers, and tightened his belt and tunic.
“Life is many days,” he told her, “and the Wheel Clan has a long unforgiving memory. Moreover, it’s too soon for me to marry. I still love your sister. In the days to come I will grow to love you. Do not weep.”
“What if the days bring you someone else to love?” She wrung her hands.
“I am not one whom many wish to marry,” Psal said. “And I have a faithful, very uncomplicated heart. I love those who love me. I will wait for you. But we must wait until Nahas relents, and even after we marry, I cannot live with your father in your longhouse. When the daymoon eclipses—it’s not too far away, the lunar eclipse!—Cassia will have her baby in her arms. She’ll have grown to love her husband by then, and her heart will not grieve to see us together.”
Moonlight adjusted her clothing. “No, no, Firstborn, you must love me now and live among us now.”
He lifted her and glanced at her stomach. “Or has your lover left you with a child?”
The girl looked at him, eyes wide. She shook her head vehemently.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to impugn your virtue. I only…it’s just that…you seem so desperate to be married to me. It’s quite new to me to be so wanted.”
“I’m a virgin still.”
“That doesn’t matter to me.” He hugged her waist and began leading her toward Tsbosso’s longhouse. “Even if you were pregnant, I would’ve taken the unborn child as my own.”
She clutched his arm. “It’s only that I’m so unloved.”
Have I seen her emotion correctly? Ah, me! I’ve become like Nahas. Does she not seem to wish that she had lied about a pregnancy? Psal kissed her forehead. “You have one who loves you now. One who will love you. Only, don’t be so desperate and don’t marry the next warrior who asks for you.” He led Moonlight to her father and said to the old man, “I’ll be faithful to her until we meet.”
Her fingers tightened, painful around his. “Marry me now, Psallo. Please! Your father will forgive it in time.”